Following speculation, Nokia's Maemo switches to Qt

Rodney Gedda

Rodney Gedda is the former deputy editor of CIO and former editor of Techworld.

It's happened again. Right after I blog about something related to IT vendor strategy the prophecy is fulfilled. I so need to blog more. Last time it was netbooks, this time it's widget toolkits.

In my last post I gave an overview of Nokia's software ecosystem in light of the N97 release and its new widgets.

Nokia's reasons for moving the Maemo project to the Qt toolkit are as much about consolidating its diverse software portfolio as it is about promoting the “Qt Everywhere” initiative.

The Nokia-owned Qt Software wants Qt to be used across the display (say a media centre or digital signage application), desktop, netbook and mobile device interface.

This kind of application portability was also one of the design goals behind the Plasma widget set and development environment, which leverages Qt.

If a Plasma widget can be used from a large to a small screen with minimal code change (say the form-factoring was already taken care of in the API) then the opportunity for take up is much greater. Plasma widgets can even be served over the Web.

Kind of like Java's “write once, run anywhere” mantra, but appending “and look the same”.

If Nokia's Qt platform is being enhanced to allow developers to write a widget once and run it anywhere while having it look and interact the same way it's certainly onto a winner.

With Maemo using Qt, Nokia and third-parties can do more testing of how widgets perform across mobile Internet devices and desktops for starters.

It makes a lot of sense to unify the look, feel and functionality of desktop and mobile applications.

As people begin to manage their information in a more transient PC-mobile fashion, having a unified computing interface will be increasingly helpful.

Sure there's the Web, but it's not always available on the road and the user experience between and desktop and a phone can be vastly different.

Widgets are gathering pace as a nice “middle ground” between what we traditionally view as desktop, notebook and mobile applications.

They are uncomplicated and can work when no network access is available to sync at a later time. Nokia's technology adds portability.

What's next for Nokia software. Me thinks more consolidation is on the horizon, possibly at the operating system level first.